One’s Hero, One’s Enemy

“One’s Hero, One’s Enemy” reflects the uncomfortable reality that every conflict is viewed from two sides at the same time. The person seen as a threat by one side may return home as a protector, father, son or friend in the eyes of another.

The figure standing before the city does not celebrate victory. The posture represents confrontation with consequence, the realization that every life taken leaves absence behind somewhere else. Families wait. Children wait. Friends wait. Ideology changes depending on perspective, but loss remains identical on every side of violence.

The city surrounding the figure symbolizes the environments where morality, politics, survival and belief collide until individual human value slowly disappears beneath larger narratives. In these moments, people become targets, enemies, assets or statistics long before they stop being human beings.

The work questions the idea of victory itself. In confrontations where someone loses their life, there is rarely a true winner. There is only surviving, mourning and the continuation of cycles both sides believed were justified.

Created on canvas using acrylic paint applied with a compass, a tactical helmet clip and multiple Kalashnikov rounds that never hit me. I use real operational materials to leave something of myself behind in the canvas to give the art a soul.

Dimensions 70 X 50 cm on canvas